Friday, February 27, 2009

Monetary support for right wing religious organizations has been declining for years and their budgets have been shrinking. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral organization, still the largest televangelist ministry in the World, is on the ropes and it's media footprint has dramatically shrunken from what it was in it's hay day, 20 years ago. Most of the mainstream ministries of the past, run by the Robertsons, Falwells, Roberts, Swaggarts, and Bakers are defunct or moribund. The Crouch's TBN Network continues to broadcast pleas for money, made by gaudily dressed Okie hucksters, dripping in gold jewelry and phony hairpieces, Worldwide, to an ever decreasing audience.

The recent American election showed that while the people may not be clear about what they want, they are clear about what they don't want. What they don't want, most particularly, are the ravings of glossalalian, six toed, snake handling, exorcist, thumpers, telling them what they must believe and how they must live their lives. Americans, more than any other people on earth, consider themselves religious. They have been raised to decide what kind of a relationship with God they will have, each his or her own. They believe others should have that right as well. Spirituality is not a one size fits all garment. They don't want someone else's idea of morality shoved down their throats. They don't want to shove their ideas down anybody else's. God pitches a big tent. There is room under it to shelter all of us that want in.

Today, James Dobson and his wife bailed out of the Focus on the Family organization, that they have spent 30 years building. The money and the support just aren't there anymore. They will probably go out on the circuit, where they can get lucrative speaking engagements and maybe get on as paid correspondents with Fox News, while there is still some money to be had there.

Even Pope Ratzo I is looking to downsize the Catholic Church. The American franchise, the only one that still pays its own way, is full of liberal fellow travelers, who want an ever increasing level of autonomy in their lives and worship. The huge South American franchise has been shaken by revelations that the divine cult of veneration focused on the Virgin Mary is really just a continuation of the pagan native worship of the Earth Mother, beaten down when the Conquistadors brought Catholicism to the Western hemisphere, with bloody sword and fire hardened stake.

Those who really value the nurturing of religious thought, around the World, breath a sigh of relief.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Richard Perle now denies that that there is a neocon philosophy, or neocons. If there were any such thing, he denies he would have been one or sympathized with them. He denies that he ever supported any pro Israeli American foreign policy. He denies that he worked for or was in any way influential within the Bush administration.

I understand what he's saying. I just don't understand the point of it. There has been a whole generation of men and women who have risen up in America who are not Americans. Their primary allegiance is to the cause of Zionism and whatever is left is to themselves. They never tried to hide their sympathies. Their thesis is that the causes of Zion and America are the same. They are, in fact, not. Never were.

This group that Perle belongs to includes William Kristol, Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolflowitz, David Frum, Max Boot and thousands more across America. They believe Americans are stupid sheep. They despise them. They value our thoughts, aspirations and lives not at all.

People understand this but Americans are a fair people. Neocons were born in this country. They are technically Americans. Everyone is entitled to put forward their own opinions and preferences. At the same time, why the neocons say what they say and do what they do, has nothing to do with what's good for this nation or in it's best interest. People realize this.

Does Perle think he can walk away from what he's spent an entire lifetime making of himself?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Here's my favorite story of the week. Over at the Vatican, Fester got his little white satin beanie handed to him, his ermine collar all ruffled, his lacy mu mu in a bunch and his shiny, red slippers, scuffed.

The Austrian clergy had sent il Popo Gigo a list of candidates from which to choose the new Bishop of Linz. Instead of doing as bid, he designated one of his flighty proteges, a priest named Gerhard Wagner, for the job. Gerhard, who bears a striking resemblance to Hermann Goering, sometimes likes to "exorcise" young boys of their excess demon fluids, has stated that hurricane Katrina was sent against New Orleans as punishment for the homosexuality, libertinism and abortion that goes on there, also believes that the Harry Potter books are evil and their author, J.K. Rowling, is a creature of Satan and should be burned. Sounds to me kind of like the pot calling the kettle scorched.

The people of Austria couldn't care less who the Pope makes a bishop. They rarely go to church anyway. The priests of Austria, who still hope to have some kind of meaningful relationship with the people, do care. So, all the priests in Austria got together and implored the Pope not to do this thing.

The Pope just said, "Fuck off, my choice".

Next, the priests had a little "talk" with Gerhard. Gerhard took himself out of the running. Next day. He's going to be living in Linz, after all, not the Vatican.

Ratzo will have to pick a new bishop of Linz. Maybe next time he will stick to the list. Maybe not. Slow learner.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

You gotta admire Selma Hayek. While getting a tour of an African hospital, a starving baby whose mother had no milk was pointed out to her.

She said, "I have plenty", sat down on a bed, whipped out a dug and fed the child. A practical, direct response, to a situation that she could do something about. Right then.

I don't think serial third World, baby adopter, Mia Farrow would do this. Angelina Jolie might but I doubt anything wholesome, nutritious or non infectious, could be expressed as an exudate, from any part of her body.

There is a bill before Congress that would, among other things, lift travel restrictions to Cuba. I would like to go to Cuba. Weather's good. Cheap. Clean. Low crime rate. People are friendly. Medical costs are low. I could have some skin cancers cut off. I got a bunch and no insurance right now.

It was OK for Nixon to go to China and establish trade relations that would eventually destroy our economy. It was OK for Reagan to deal with the despised revolutionary government of Iran. First to manipulate them into keeping the embassy hostages until after the 1980 elections that would make him President and then to trade weapons for money that he would secretly use to fund Contra death squads in Nicaragua, both deeply immoral, illegal and in the first case, treasonous acts.

It's not OK for me though, to go to Cuba for a week, stay in a cheap hotel, have a daiquiri and shrimp cocktail at the Copa, eat an ice cream cone on the strand, watch the girls go by and maybe have some malignancies cut off my flaky, old hide.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

People depend on government to help them in times of need. This has always been so. In ancient times the rulers of countries controlled the granaries. Grain was stored in times of plenty and distributed in times of scarcity. This, even more than the maintenance of armies for national defense caused people to tolerate even repressive rule. For much of its history, Roman government provided food to a citizenry no longer able to grow it themselves. They got this grain through purchase or expropriation from other parts of the empire.

Our government does not store grain. It does not hold stores of wealth with which to buy grain. There is no empire. Government does not have the coercive power to force others to give us grain. Or fuel. Or clothing. Or anything else. Our government can print money. As long as the rest of the World will accept the money it prints, everything will be hunky dory.

How long do you think that will be? Printing and spending a trillion dollars in stimulus insures that it won't be very long.

Zimbabwe prints money. Its value decreases by 98% every day. The people are starving. They are dying of cholera. They are leaving the country in droves.

America does have an impressive military capacity. If you look at what happens historically during times like this, in countries like ours, there is one constant besides the suffering of the populace. Wars of conquest.

I think this is interesting. I don't believe Chuck Colson is a genius but he's about as smart as fundamentalist Christians get.

He seems to be saying here that things don't have to be factually wrong to be denied, only morally objectionable. While I think this has always been the case with organized religion, they have never come out and actually said it. He proposes that there is a separate "Christian view of reality", which trumps scientific reality, because Christian reality came first and is innately superior. Flat Earth, four thousand years old, anyone?

Monday, February 09, 2009

I believe in the equality of the sexes. The sexes aren't the same though. Heterosexual males and females share more DNA with chimpanzees of the same sex than with the people of the same species they fuck.

Go out to dinner next Saturday and watch the dynamics of the couples around you. Better yet, think about the dynamics between yourself and the person you fuck on Saturday. What are you doing, why and what do you want out of it?

Sunday, February 08, 2009

None of the Bush bailout money came anywhere near me. None of the Obama bailout money will come anywhere near me. I won't be getting any of the jobs the government is going to create.

The money that the government prints and spends to try and stimulate the economy will inflate the monetary system and likely make the worth of what little I have managed to put aside over the course of my life even more worthless than it already is, after the stock market crash last year.

I don't know if I'm working poor, blue collar or middle class. I really don't give a fuck. I know that I'm getting old and I don't have the health, stamina or time to rebuild financially, if everything I have goes down the toilet.

I never went into debt. I paid off my house. I saved money. All pretty much for nothing. I think at the very least, Ben Bernanke should come over to my house and blow me. Like a consolation prize. He's got a purty mouth.

Monday, February 02, 2009

I don't get the Michael Steele, GOP National Chairmanship pick, do you? He is a fiscally conservative, cafeteria Catholic. He is from a State where blacks are a minority but control the politics in urban areas. He has never been a major player, even in the politics of his home state.

For a Republican politician, you have to classify Michael Steele as liberal, right up there with Rudy Giuliani. This means he isn't an outright racist, gun nut or fundamentalist religious zealot. He is willing to cede to women, gays, progressives and racial minorities those rights that they have already won through hard work in the culture wars of the last 50 years but no more.

What does turning over the leadership of their party to this guy get the Republicans? He will not endear himself to the base. He will not bring support over from the ranks of the center or left leaning independents. He will leave actual Democrats cold.

Possibly he can rally socially moderate church goers to vote Republican. If he does, the Republicans run the risk of losing those for whom abortion, gay marriage and the anti Islamic global war are the only issues that matter. This is the Republican dilemma in a nutshell. It's not a trade they can afford to make right now. It's not a trade they can afford not to make for the future.

I guess the important thing going on here for the Republicans, is that they are starting to try and do things a little differently. This may lead to actual change later on.

Americans are fat because they eat too much and don't do anything. The economy is bad because we don't produce anything to sell at a profit and spend too much. We're losing the wars because haven't identified the enemy and are fighting the wrong people.